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The young lady below lost her favorite sterling silver ring on a sports field playing lacrosse a couple days ago. Once she demonstrated approximately where she was on the field and where/how she was throwing the ball when the ring popped off, it look less than a minute to find it. Right on the surface under the unmowed grass, and multi-repeat 42/43 on the Legend. It took longer to power on and set up the machine than it did to find the ring!

Actually there was an anything goes sub-forum for years that finally got nuked as even Bill got fed up with it. That plus the “sooner or later” and “habitual offenders” is why I made the comment. Action here is immediate and more than once is a probable ban. I actually hate being a watchdog so the easiest solution is to get rid of those that need watching. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a jerk to new arrivals. I just don’t want anyone being caught unawares by my evil draconian oversight.

Not sure what makes the D2 not relaxing or difficult. Once you set it up it's a turn on and go machine. Actually one of the easiest machines to run. 5 tone pwm in single frequency is pretty easy to follow. I often use 2 tone or 5 tone when relic hunting and full tone square for coin/jewelry. D2 does have a good advantage of being able to range the smf as well as run it in a wide range of single frequencies which makes it incredibly versatile. I always wanted an F75 but weight is a downside, D2 has me spoiled 🙂

No doubt just what Minelab was thinking. So far with Storm it has been just like a Storm in the distance - lots of noise but nothing happening. I hate these long drawn out tease releases.

Nugget Shooter forum members welcome for sure! Just a friendly reminder for those not used to how this forum works…. it is an absolutely zero politics zone. I don’t warn I just delete. I set this place up as a refuge from all that and if people want it there are plenty of other places to get it. This forum by design sticks to dry boring topics like gold prospecting and metal detecting.

Got out the Le'Trap. My 3000 GPH pump draws 12 Ah, so my new 100 Ah 12 volt battery can run my pump for about 8 hours. Much more time then I could do in a day. Here's the setup I used. Got a little petrifird wood today. Here's 2 hours worth of digging.

Yeah true 3d prints can be pisspoor or they can be 5 star, unfortunately I have not used a Goldseekr Swing Arm if you do get one Jin please gives us a review.

I have all 3 of the coils. Each has it's place. Withe M8 you have to slow you roll so you can cover everything. The 15" is like swinging a garbage can lid in terms of coverage and on my beaches it's deep like a PI. If you're dating the manticore you can get away with just having the 11". If you're getting married to the Manticore you will regret not having the 15".

I think we are all addicted to having the next best detector. For me to love one and dis others is a bit unfair. I don't mean to influence anyone's decision, because another person might not see and feel the same way about a detector. But, I think constructive comparison is good informative talk for forums and free critique for the manufacturers. Everyone has their favorite brand, I'm no different. Right now we are mostly left with the big three... Garrett, Minelab, and XP. We should be all glad we have different manufacturers to choose from and not just one. We used to have a lot more! My only intention here is to help those who chose the Apex themselves and not make anyone buy one because I like it. I've owned a lot of different detectors over the years and tested even more. I would have loved to settle on just one and had it become my "right arm", but there was always something I didn't like and it shoved me to look further. I have known people early in the hobby that stayed with only one brand and model and learned it well. Well enough to often times outperform the latest gadget detector. It's only because they long-learned how to operate and interpret signals with incredible accuracy. Many years ago, I tutored an older women club member who asked for my help in how to better use her detector. She had an incredible place to hunt, but did poorly her different times out. After she was shown the right way to use it and got more comfortable with her detector (old White's non-motion), she came to the next meeting and plopped down a medium-sized jar of silver coins! I swear I could almost hear jaws hit the table! To be honest, the art of the hunt is a little more than just the detector!

Last monday I finally started the test phase with the Manticore and the M8 underwater. After a minimum of settings adaptation, I recovered three small and light pieces for a total amount of almost 6 grams in total. Tuesday underwater again and Wednesday wetsand workout, nothing to register...Until today on the wetsand...I was again with the M11 and after the usual coins and an unexpected sinker on the slope, minutes after a solid 17 screaming to dig it. It was a 4.45g 18k piece. What else can I say...Jeez...If there's something left, this is the most similar tool to a vacuum cleaner 😅

September 21 2002 Part Two These guys looked to be middle aged but it was getting hard to see clearly in the fading light. The sun had just set when they appeared out of nowhere. Clay hollered over to them and asked them where they were going but they ignored him and kept getting closer. They weren’t on a path directly towards our camp but were following the creek about 100 feet away. I stood up and shined my flashlight in their direction and asked them what they were doing. The one in the front turned toward me and said they were prospecting for gold. Mighty funny I thought as they weren’t carrying anything with them. Not even backpacks or shovels. I asked them where their gear was and all five of them stopped walking. I saw the one in front say something to the others and before a few seconds had passed two of them walked away down the creek and three of them cut up the floodplain north towards the base of the mountain. Then I heard one or two of those three trampling through the brush just above us to the north. They had us surrounded. Conor said he saw some side arms on them. Clay said he did as well. Jacob said they might have been watching us weigh the gold and waited until dark to make their move. It was almost as if they had walked up near enough to size us up. Jacob said that if it's trouble they want he will give it to them in spades. He had his old Thompson ready for action. I was thinking to myself that what the hell is all this? Have we gone back in time to the 1930’s ? None of us were ready to give up our gold. If they wanted a fight they would get one. TO BE CONTINUED ................

I open this topic for new users of the Garrett Apex and the Pro-Pointer, a.k.a. "Carrott". There might be something experienced operators might want to ask as well. I had originally planned on writing a huge intense review about Apex features and detail the operation of it, but I think it might be less boring and more productive if users asked me specific questions they have. I have owned the Apex now for 4 years and really enjoy using it. I'm not a water hunter, nor gold prospector... I hunt mostly coins, flat buttons, jewelry, and relics in the oldest locations I can find. If that interests you, I will be happy to share what I know about the Apex and land metal detecting in general. Yesterday (4/16), on a permission I have been hunting (more like beating to death) for 13 years now, the law of diminishing returns is starting to become evident. So I spent the day hunting in random directions over my colonial era crop field... hunting more slowly, hoping to find anything at all actually. So I relaxed a little and removed some pressure from myself by not competing with myself! I have found everything imaginable here from coins, buttons, and relics lost by the people who plowed these fields long ago... Right on through to items people are still losing today. Towards the end of day, expecting to go home empty-handed yet again, I hunted near a good-sized Hickory tree in the middle of the field which likely presented an obstacle to one of farmers long ago. It was probably left standing anyway because it was at the crest of a hill and possibly for its never ending crop of nuts. My target signal (only 8 feet inside the shade from the tree) sounded surface loud. The pitch bounced from "foil to pull-tab", back and forth. Walking around the target, I was able to somewhat isolate the "60-ish from the 40-ish" conductive ID, making it more stable and repeatable in the higher direction. A quick glance of the depth scale in the custom search mode I use showed 3 bars or only 6". I ran my iron technique in Pinpoint and proved the target not to be large iron at least. There were plenty of little iron "grunts" around the location though. OK I thought, one more out of context pull-tab or gnarly foil wad and I'll hit the road for home! Folding a plug back, the "Carrott" started to "Bugs Bunny" in the bottom of the hole... A little more dirt and it's out! I checked the hole depth with the embossed scale on the side of the pinpointer... 6" nearly on the mark. But no pull-tab or foil... It was an 1863 cupro-nickel Indian! Normally the "Fatty's" are oxidized into date oblivion, but this ground was kind. This penny still had some light green patina in the recesses. It must have been dropped not too long after circulation. It was in the same era of a rare campaign button I once found in the other end of this field. Not far from my dig, I got another signal that read "51". I was hoping for possibly a "Shield" nickel, only to be disappointed with a 1981 Jefferson at about the same depth as the Indian! 🙂 Hopefully this little (true) story will invite some questions about how I use and adjust the Apex and get us started!

I agree, the tech is definitely approaching it's ceiling, and I've been very happy with my EQ800 for the last 5.5 years. My main complaints involved build quality issues much more so than performance. To make a long story short, I needed to replace my 800 control pod two years ago, so I decided this year was the year to look at moving on to something different, while I could still get good resale on the machine with a year of warranty left. I looked at the EQ900, but it didn't seem to offer enough (if any) improvement for the cost, and I didn't like some of the reviews from other detectorists that I trust - a few of them were previous 800 owners, and several sold off their 900s or went back to the 800. The Manitcore was appealing but I couldn't justify the cost for the potentially minimal gain in performance. I decided to try a Legend starting in January - I wasn't expecting an increase in performance, just an increase in build quality and roughly equivalent performance, and at a much better price. That's essentially what I got for the investment, and the Legend works very well - though I'd make the case that it's performance isn't quite the same in some areas that are important to me, and I'm not convinced (after almost 100 hours) that it's the machine for me. Anyways, the price drop on the Manticore was enough to entice me - if it was at this price point in January, I would have bought it over the Legend without a second thought. Pulled the trigger last night. Once it arrives, I'll suddenly have three detectors when I've always just had one, and I'll suddenly have an irate wife! But if the Manticore provides better build and even marginal gains over the EQ800 as it seems to promise, then it'll be worth it to me - I'll finally part with the 800, and the Legend will likely get sold as well.

I’d expect 800s to still be the norm. The question is, for those that are switching, what are they switching to? Legend, D2, or Manticore? I ruffle feathers when I say the tech has maxed because people want to believe detectors have no limits. I think however many people are seeing that for some applications at least, like nugget hunting or beach detecting, the Equinox 800 is still a top performer. Gains are very hard to come by with the current state of the technology.

In my neck of the woods most folks are still swinging the 800. I loved the 800 but I love the 2D screen more and the expanded TID range. That being said that is a great sale and with gold at $2400 an ounce you can easily pay for your machine if you are concerned about that sort of thing.

The Versa is very impressive, the Legend not so much, too fiddly and the Versa just worked better on deep targets.

It IS the new machine! The fact that this seems like a U.S. only thing would seem to indicate weak sales here combined with the U.S. managers desire to boost the end of quarter reporting. This kind of sale though does less to generate new sales than rob from future Manticore sales, so the job gets even harder next quarter. I think the Deus 2 is proving to be stiffer competition than Minelab ever thought would happen with Manticore. @Bill (S. CA) reports lots of D2 and very few Manticore on So. Cal beaches. The relic hunters seem to favor the D2. Maybe the scene is different on Florida beaches?

You can’t really go wrong with either the f75 or the Legend. Most will say the Legend has more potential as multi-freq but for simplicity, ease of setup and user comfort and satisfaction, the f75 is awesome. I still want to get another one at some point.

I, too, was hoping for Garrett to release an update to refine the code of the Apex as well. The core program is good, but could use a little tweaking to make it even better. Tweaking it would be a great way to increase the value to the current users and lure prospective buyers to consider the Apex. Simply allowing limited adjustability of the recovery speed, audio enhancements as mentioned in this thread, toggling the backlight on when changing detecting modes etc., would be beneficial to the all users. That notwithstanding, I have spent many hours with the Apex in the last 3+ years too, and found many, many desirable targets with the Apex, some of my best. As Bob and others mentioned, working slowly around iron infested sites can yield some nice non ferrous targets. With the Apex, one has to spend a little more time working amongst the iron sounds to hear the non ferrous targets. The D2 can locate these targets a little faster due to the adjustable recovery speed. Recently I was at an old homesite where there was plenty of metallic trash in the ground. I went over the sight with the D2-9” and was able to recover 5 coins and some relics. Then, on another afternoon, I went over the same area with the Apex equipped with the Ripper coil and extracted two more coins, a key lock, and more relics. In my Ohio soil, I find the D2-9” hits an 8” buried dime sized target better than the Apex with the Raider coil. But, again, the D2 cost 3x as much as the Apex. Both machines offer great performance and easy-on-the-arm and shoulder swinging for extended periods of time.

I’m using the ws6 master on my Steve’s detector shaft. It is a super light combination.

Anything below the disc setting will give an iron tone. Targets in the notched range will be silent.

On The Deus 2 square Tone, I find very similar to the F75 Tones

3x ? Not exactly .. Here are the local ( French ) prices : Garrett Apex : 549 E XP Deus2 WS6 master : 899 E ==> 899/549 = 1.6x https://www.metaux-detection.fr/fr/

Hi , I agree with kac , I dont understand what makes the D2 not relaxing for you .. The D2 is much lighter ( 850g for a D2 WS6 ) than a T2/F75 ( 1.7kg ) or even a Legend ( 1.4kg ) .. For me this single thing means much more relaxation , at least for my arm and shoulder .. 🙂 I like the T2 audio too , but its design dates from 2005/6 and either its electronics or mechanical design are outdated for me after almost 20 years .. It is very easy to use a Deus2 if correctly set . Have you tested the TEKKNA program ? It is based on SENSITIVE nr3 and I think it would be great for your local conditions with high iron trash ..

Good job Clark, that little guy is in good hands!

Here is dry glaucophane, it looks more greenish. When wet you get more bluish of a color. Appears to have a spindel concave perfectly rounded.

Just wondering if he watched the Nokta video on how to use Beast mode.

A few, yes. I'm just south of the line where the Wisconsinian and Illinoian glaciers halted, and some of the creeks draining that area can yield chunkier gold. I've found three chunky flakes (<0.02g) that ring up on the 800 and Legend in their respective gold modes.

Nice recovery, her smile says it all

This must be Minelab’s way of dealing with the competition, about 30% off of their top multi-freq. detector is quite rare of a sale for sure. Manticore $1199 about 30% off plus another 15% military off for those who served for a total of 45% off. Equinox $999 and also the veterans if you qualify. Free shipping and Oregon is a no tax state. Ron’s Detector’s 208-739-8079 rrlmmc@gmail.com Please support your local small dealers as we are going to be going to the wayside pretty soon with most companies going direct sales. With that being said I will always remember when Gerry, Doc’s and Rob were always the ones to ask technical questions as they usually had the answers.

Here's another of Andrew's excellent videos (from April 2024) showing the Manticore+M8 finding desert gold:

Hi Dennis, Age is catching up with us both! Hard call as the Gold Bug 2 is still an excellent machine and you are familiar with it. I myself am going to the Manticore with 5x8 coil for general detecting and that will also include nugget detecting. I am getting to where just one general purpose detector will suit me fine as long as it is also decent for nugget detecting, and Manticore does well in that area, while also serving me for other uses. I'd still bet on the Gold Bug 2 for the tiny bits. Only real reason to consider the Manticore is if you are interested in it's other capabilities i.e. coins, jewelry, relics, beach. If you do think you want a Manticore now is the time, as it is $500 off until May 6th. Good videos here in Nevada. Having seen it in person I was impressed and next time out in the desert I'll be swinging the Manticore.

You're a good man.

Hmmmm.... First Texas selling below dealer prices. Now Minelab with super deep discounts. Knife fight in detector land with buyers as winners. Sellers of used detectors, not so much.

Here's my theory... When copper and nickel alloyed coins are dropped closer to the time they were minted, the die strike work-hardens the metal surface which makes them more resistant to oxidation. Hunting ground with lower acidity always helps too, but coins that have been in circulation a long time have that "protective skin" worn away and are very vulnerable to oxidation. I have found Large Cents that look like the day they were minted (found in nasty ground) because they were not circulation worn. Large Cents from the same time period that were heavily circulated are nearly worthless to look at! Yes phrunt, if Garrett can advance the ergonomics, simplicity, and comfort factor of the Apex and make it more all-terrain, they are building on an already winning design in my eyes. I have already easily dug older coins at 10" with the Apex, not sure I need or want to dig any deeper! Many of my best coins over the years have been in the 6-8" depth range with old and new detectors.

Hey Kac... Bad rap or not, I haven't been happier in years using a detector like I have been with the Apex. Works extremely well in my environments. I have always prided myself in being able to find good targets with just about any metal detector, but none have been so comfortable to use like the Apex has been. What is really needed to make great finds is finding a great place to use it on and having your searchcoil over the target, not how much you can spend on a detector. My own early air test sensitivity observations between the D2-11 General and the Apex-11x6 Custom... The Apex won hands down. I was getting great response to my 14K wedding ring at beyond 11" at full sensitivity. In my soil, I didn't find the D2 any deeper than the Apex, both with 11" round and elliptical respectively. The D2 was more hungry for small rusted iron. The only difference I saw was in target separation tests, the D2 won there only because you have the ability to adjust the speed of the reactivity, the Apex you do not. But these are tests and not real live situations. However, increasing target separation by increasing reactivity has the unfortunate trade-off of reducing depth penetration. Garrett seems to have dialed in a sweet spot for the Apex's reactivity. You wouldn't believe what I found in one hour on an old trash embankment with the Apex. It does a good enough job for me at 1/3 the price. The Viper and Ripper so far has earned my "best coil I have ever used on any detector" award. Great weight, great depth, great construction, and great maneuverability. Slower sweep speeds in iron on most of today's motion discriminators is a good choice, it helps you maintain coil angularity and tighter overlap as well. It has taken me many years to not be so competitive with myself! Will Garrett address the modulated audio vs. the hybrid audio as an option? I honestly have no clue, but there are times having a punchy audio was just what I needed in the face of strong ambient noise. I was a big fan of the AT-Pro audio as it was softer and had less edge on the ears, but I have gotten used to watching my depth gauge in the search mode and not the pinpoint mode anyway. It is quite accurate on items it has been primarily calibrated for. You can actually hear a difference between deep and surface targets with hybrid, but it is quite subtle... Deep targets have less "blip" to the edge as you say. I always listen to my modulated all-metal pinpoint audio strength when gauging depths. I have never used the Apex on a conductive salt beach, but I hear it is quite good. I guess I'll have to learn to take a vacation now and then! 🙂

I found the distance between armcuff and the handle to be too short for me on the lite as I am tall . And this distance cannot be modified as it is a single molded part. I prefer shafts where the armcuff handle distance can be set to my preferences, like on my Quest Q30 mod shaft.

Ha! My larger fuel tank came in the mail today. This one allows me to run my Geo Highbanker for about 12 hours. This new battery is rated at 100 Ah. My current battery is 60 Ah. Both of them will give me about 19 hours run time with the Geo Sluice and 53 hours with the California Mini. And, the new battery only ways 24 LBS. If I add a solar panel, it will be even more run time.

Welcome from East Texas.

Haven't used the minelab but Docs works great.

As I told last week, I was preparing the Manti for today's session on the seabed. In a few words, "damn it works"... Even if I abused the machine using underwater the beach LC program, I however managed to take with me three pieces. The second attempt will be with surf and seawater, which I think it is the proper way to use it when diving. Not bad for the day one💣

Wow! I just received my torus nbo5t in the mail today. I can hear! With my Equinox 800 I heard music with all the tones it has. Now I hear a symphony! The sound quality is amazing over the stock headphones. I played around in my yard, that I've gone over about twenty times, and heard so much more. I used both the speaker and the ear buds. The buds are great in wind. Then I plugged into my gpx 4500 with an adapter. Previously I could not run this machine here because of the emi. I cranked the sensitivity down to 3 and the gain down to 2 to stabilize it. And I could still pick up signals at some depth. I only screwed around with this one for maybe twenty minutes in my pasture where there aren't a lot of signals. Super impressed with what I could find with the way I had to run the detector on such low settings. The penny I should have found before. The pencil extender and eraser clamp was a very complex sound. On the 4500 I was amazed at the depth with such low settings, a horseshoe nail, 22 short, Lead shot, a 22 bullet and and a square nail. The items them selves weren't important. It was finding them. The audio on both speaker and buds was great. With the 4500 I needed to use the buds. I'll have to play around with that. Thanks for the product.

After I take my Ambient, sleep medicine, I may wake up, go out on my porch, grab a detector, and recite the Gettysburg address in my boxers at three in the morning.😴

September 18 2002 We got back to mining this morning. Conor and I got the tom set up while Jacob and Clay started digging and hauling pay gravel. The weather is sunny and warm and things are beginning to dry out. The creek is still running fast but the water is back within its banks. I test paned the first load of gravel before we started processing and the gold is there in spades. We let Clay bring down three loads before we started running at 10:00 AM so as to give a cushion for the transport of material and we won’t run out or have to wait on him. One of the Forest Service people came by this morning as well and checked on us. I showed him the repaired road and he also took a walk down along the creek to check the waters and floodplain. He seemed pretty impressed that we had already repaired the haul road and were ready to mine so quickly. He said there was a mining operation along the creek about ten miles west of ours and they had lost their small trommel in the flood. We had a good day and were able to process 70 yards of gravel. We are going to run until around noon tomorrow and do a cleanup. Jacob has gotten deeper into the dig site with still no sign of bedrock. The gold seems to keep getting better. TO BE CONTINUED ..................

Not a bedroom. The whole house.😇

I did not say I was disappointed in the Apex and perhaps you are just referring to those who were. People self hype, and many self hyped that this mid range detector was somehow intended to be direct competition to high end models. It was obvious to me that it was placed in the Ace lineup for good reason. I actually really like the Apex, especially the physical design and controls/screen. But like many I do wish for a version with a little more horsepower under the hood. We see it all the time. There is a now $2000 PI detector out, and people immediately began saying it was a waste of time because it did not replace their $6000 or $8000 detector. By and large with the rarest of exceptions manufacturers tell you exactly what the story is by how they position a product within their own lineup.

NIce haul...goes to show that the CTX is a great all around machine.. strick

I just went the Deus 1 for the same reason, a nice lightweight prospecting detector that shrinks down to backpack, it all pops apart so easily with the control box popping off the shaft and the cordless coil coming off the shaft in seconds, it's perfect for a pinpointer or VLF to complement the big guns and throw into a backpack, even a quite small backpack is no problem. I'm surprised how sensitive that 9.5 x 5" HF coil is too, it's better than I expected it would be. I was even able to turn one detector into 2 by using an old spare Ace shaft and WS4 headphones for the controlling of the coil. I call it my Dace The biggest problem I see so far is it falls over more than a Gold Monster if that's even possible, whoever designed the shaft didn't consider that the arm cuff feet need to reach the ground, and they don't so it rests on the plastic below the handle with the feet up in the air. Weird. This photo is just for show, really it's so wobbly in use I just lay it on it's side. It's like it was designed for coils with a center coil mount and they moved the mount to the rear of the coil. It's going to be perfect being so light for detecting stuff like this, where your detector is up above your head most of the time, I've been detecting it with the GPZ and 8" coil and even that gets hard work, the GPX 6000 was no better, still feels heavy holding it up in the air for hours detecting walls like this, the XP will be near weightless doing it. One of my biggest nuggets came from very near this photo.